Michail Kyriazanos: ***Smooth Acorn with Horn Tobacco Pipe

Out of all of his classically informed designs, I find the overall bowl shapes of Michail Kyriazanos' Acorns to be the most distinctive — consistently displaying a soft, domed style of rim, with slightly higher-set transition that allows the strong taper of the bowl and the pronounced spur-like heel to really stand out. While the bowl shapes may be quite similar from one iteration to the next, Michail does experiment quite a bit with the rest of the composition in these designs. In this same batch, for example, we found that signature Acorn shape paired up to an extra long, subtly flaring shank; yet we also find this handier piece, featuring a long, flared ferrule of genuine horn. While the former called to mind some of Pete Prevost's designs, this particular iteration seems to nod to some of Sixten Ivarsson's Acorn variations, like the Peewit — offering an active silhouette while still keeping to a natural feel in hand. Contrasting the dark horn ferrule on this piece, Michail's chosen a warm finish for the briar itself, highlighting the block's choice grain pattern.